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Ambience: Madagascar Dawn

“It’s always tough to leave the field at the end of the season. But it’s also exciting, because it gives me the opportunity to take stock of all of the data that we’ve collected and think about where my project is going to go next.”

Welcome to Pulse of the Planet’s Science Diaries, a glimpse of the world of science from the inside. Today we’re with Earthwatch scientist Summer Arrigo-Nelson. She’s been studying Sifaka lemurs, small tree-dwelling primates found only on the island of Madagascar. When scientists like Summer who work in the field, pack up their tents and come home, they bring with them a mountain of data. Their next job is to make sense of it all.

“We were in Madagascar for six weeks. And together we were able to collect over three hundred plants samples for chemical analysis and also feeding rate data that tells us how much of these plants the animals ate. And when we put these two pieces of data together, we can calculate the energy intake of the animals living in the disturbed forest and then compare that to the energy intake of the animals living in the pristine forest. The next step is to figure out how these differences in diet and energy intake impact the social structure of the Sifaka groups. Because Sifaka are a female dominate species, do differences in energy intake affect the level of aggression within the group? Are females more aggressive in situations where their energy intake is lower, or do they have less success in giving birth to surviving offspring, offspring that will be able to reach reproductive age themselves? We build on that and start asking more detailed questions that have to do with their survival and potentially their evolutionary path in the future.”

You can check out Summer Arrigo-Nelson’s blog on pulseplanet.com. Pulse of the Planet’s Science Diaries are made possible by the National Science Foundation.